Thursday, March 3, 2016

The real harm of Trump is that his nonsense spreads way too quickly

It
would be nice if we could just dismiss the obnoxious, xenophobic rants of
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump as just the vapid verbalizations
of a buffoon.

TRUMP: Now he inspires sports chants?

But
the sad part is that there are those people who hear Trump in campaign mode go
off on Mexicans, Muslims, some women and just about anyone else who isn’t
exactly like himself (which is 99.9999 percent of the population) and think he actually
has a clue!

THE
FACT THAT there are people whose perception of the political process is being
created now and influenced by Trump rants makes me realize this trash talk is
the kind of stuff we’re going to have to deal with for years to come.

Which
is a shame, because some people want to believe that our current younger
generation is different from those who passed before them – in that they
allegedly do not share a lot of the hang-ups and bigotry of the past.

As
though much of that racism is on its way out. Unless people like Trump (who
admittedly is more a political opportunist than a bigot) manage to keep it
alive to serve their purposes.

To
me, that is the significance of an incident at a pair of Indiana-based Catholic
high schools in which – when the two played against each other recently on the basketball
court – one side (with a 58 percent white enrollment back in the 2013-14
academic year) used Trump’s image and anti-Mexican “cheers” as a way of
taunting the other school.

ONE
WHICH HAS a fairly significant Latino share (42.1 percent in 2013-14, with 30.9
percent white) of its enrollment.

When
I say they used Trump’s image, I mean they literally brought a giant picture of
Trump’s face (bad hair and all) with them to the game, and engaged in cheers of
“Build a Wall!”

Even
though Mexican officials, including former President Vicente Fox, have made it
clear that fortifying the U.S./Mexico border would be an expense the United
States would have to bear all by itself.

POPE: Many misunderstand what's a Christian

What
gets to me is to wonder “What kind of person brings a Donald Trump picture to a
sports event?” It’s not something that would occur to me to bring if I were
attending a game.

IT
MOST LIKELY is someone who hears all the rants being spewed during this
campaign season, yet has no idea of the greater context of the issue. They
probably think it’s funny – which is the real harm caused by the nonsense
campaign cycle we’re enduring these days.

For
what it’s worth, this incident has received more than its share of attention in
sports-related media. It also seems that the two Catholic schools in question
are working together to try to teach their students that such ethnic-inspired
taunts are hardly Christian.

Then
again, those students at a Catholic school probably saw the way Trump was
touted as “da winnah” in his recent verbal spat with Pope Francis over whether
Trump’s campaign behavior was worthy of someone who considered himself to be a Christian.

I’d
argue the pope had a point that trying to play off such xenophobic rants is
un-Christian, but there are those who really seem to have no concept of what
being a Christian is all about.

IT
WILL BE interesting to see just how much of this sticks with those particular
young people. Will they come to realize the teachings they’re now receiving
about their trash-talk?

Whatever happened to foam fingers at a ballgame?

Or
will they wind up believing that those priests are somehow telling them what to
think, and that it is their own personal freedom of expression that is being
threatened?

It
always was my belief that people have a “right” to be “wrong,” and they can say
whatever they want – so long as they realize that everybody else has a right to
call them out on their nonsense. Nowhere does freedom of speech guarantee the
last word for anybody.

What
lesson will those young people who think a border barricade is worthy of a
sports chant gain from the experience?

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.